Jeff Vrabel: Swine flu wouldn't be scary if it was called koala bear flu

Jeff Vrabel

Monday

Sep 28, 2009 at 12:01 AMSep 28, 2009 at 1:44 PM

Bad news, everyone: This month has seen an increase in chatter about swine flu, or as many people call it, "the flu, with a bonus porcine prefix."

Bad news, everyone: This month has seen an increase in chatter about swine flu, or as many people call it, "the flu, with a bonus porcine prefix."

In case you haven't made yourself available to the teevee box in the past two years, swine flu, according to a shocked-sounding Human Resources Memo I received at work last week, is either a withering global pandemic that will choke the whole of humanity to extinction by the end of baseball season (which has only happened to Cubs fans so far), or is, and I'm quoting here, something that "generally doesn't require extra medical attention." But it is DEFINITELY one of those two things! Needless to say, I plan to absorb plenty of expert cable television to help me determine which is correct.

But regular readers — and hello again to everyone who accidentally clicked on those transparent self-promotional links I spray all over my Facebook — will be unsurprised to learn that I have a New Theory on swine flu! And I know I've brought up my "theories" before, but before you go rolling your eyes like usual, All Of My Friends And Those People From The Public Library, rest assured that NO, this theory isn't like all those other eventually disproven ones I've occasionally and prematurely brought up in these pages, such as "Evolution was set into motion by the sneeze of a giant space turtle" or "If you drink root beer through your nose you can stay awake for four days" or "Man has walked on the moon."

No, this theory is a good one: Swine Flu Is Scary Only Because Of The Word "Swine." And I can back this up, using English, which, incidentally, marks the first time I've found legitimate utility my college English classes since spring 1997 (not counting the time I got into a fistfight at a karaoke bar regarding the role of the Pardoner in "The Canterbury Tales." (Jerk.)

Etymologically speaking, swine is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad word — which is important to note, because words are disproportionately powerful little monsters. There are words that are perfect matches to their meanings, that precisely and almost philosophically indicate the item they describe. "Lily" and "rose" sound, conveniently enough, like pretty flowers; other words are dull, crusty and distasteful, like "cockroach" and "bowels" and "insurance lobbyist." "Swine" is a word that, unless you are a farmer, probably sets off millions of tiny negative synapses in your brain parts, all of which conspire to say "Avoid interaction with the swine, and if it has a flu in it, try not to lick it too much."

As such, I would like to conduct the following experiment: Watch as I replace the words "swine flu" in these frightening-sounding, addictively clickable Internet machine headlines by actual "news organizations" with the name of much more cute, huggable items:

• "How to help your children avoid the Koala Bear Flu"
• "Oregon school Marmaduke Flu scare"
• "Tim Tebow: Basket Full Of Puppies Flu or other illness?"
• "Intense tracking for Children Of 'Extreme Makeover' Flu shot's side effects"

See what I mean? The problem is swine. Because swine — and other members of the greater swine family, such as pigs, wild boar and Glenn Beck — are commonly regarded as nature's cruelest mistakes. They are terrible animals, as their noises are guttural and stomach-originated; they (along with naked mole rats) make extremely terrible housepets and, most importantly, they very often smell like swine. I don't know if you've ever taken a spring break trip to Florida from the Midwest with one in the car, but brother man, it's not an experience you'll care much to relive any time soon (long story).

But I'd ask you to take a just a moment to regard swine flu from the perspective of nature's most misunderstood underdogs: our friends in the cable news media, who have to fill nearly 12 hours a day of telly-vision with news, the other percentage going to predictable mouth-breathing spit machines with pretty immediate perspiration-based issues. Now, sure, it'd be nice if there were enough damaged celebrities, obscenity-laced redneck arrests or public appearances by Kanye West to fill up all that time, but not all days are that lucky. So from the attention-fried perspective of the cable news media, having "swine flu" on hand as your go-to Crashing Graphic Screen is sort of like having Christmas and your birthday and the NCAA tournament all happening at once. So while this is all going on, I ask you to think of them, the heroes of the cable news media, because without them telling you what to be terrified of every single day, you would have been killed years ago.

Jeff Vrabel is still trying to unload this box of Peter Sarsgaard SARS Guards, too. Contact him at jeffvrabel.com and follow him at twitter.com/jeffvrabel.

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